Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I tried and tried but didn’t find much to recommend this week.

I know that as a respectable journalist (I use the term loosely) that I should remain impartial and just write something informative about television that is on the air and then report my picks for the week. This week, however, is a light week and I’ve already talked about Battlestar Galactica and LOST (which, by the way, had what I felt was a very strong season opener). I also don’t care much about who is playing in the SuperBowl and for some odd reason this week I feel that if I talk about what is on the major networks I’m just being a shill for the man.

With all of this in mind I will let you know that the suggestions for this week are, just as the TV listings grid was when I read it, light. I tried, at all times possible, to avoid anything from the four major networks. In some cases, it was unavoidable (or too good to resist). So when you get to that part of this week’s column I suggest you prepare a grain of salt to take them with.

In something completely unrelated I feel compelled this week to take a moment to talk about the CW’s Smallville. Last season we heard that two of the major characters of the show were going to be leaving. The executive producers of the show were taking their leave. All of these indicators and the near painful season we had just endured were pointing towards the current season of the show being an abysmal farewell for a show that outstayed its welcome. During the summer we even heard that they were bringing the character Doomsday to the show which is a bad sign since he, in the comics, brought about the (near) death of Superman.  Even I, someone who had watched the show from the beginning, tuned in to the beginning of this season thinking the premiere would be the last show that I watched just so I could have closure on last season’s cliffhanger.

Boy was I wrong! I have been watching ever dang week! Even with budget cuts and two characters taking their (in one’s case partial) leave of the show this season has been strong and consistently entertaining. Through reinventing itself the show has found a level of charm that has been missing over at least the past three seasons. Of course I could just be nerding out now that the show seems to be getting down to the bit of business of Clark Kent finally learning the life lessons he needs to so he can evolve into the selfless hero Superman (even though even under a new regime we are still told “no flights, no tights” for this Clark Kent).

What I am really getting at is it is nice to see a show that you loved that had seemed to lose its way finally come around again. Not a lot of shows can boast that they were able to turn it around. Usually they flounder and simply vanish. If this is in fact the last season of Smallville I hope they keep up what they are doing because it is working great and they will go out strong.

And with that out of the way I present to you the weak week of picks.

MONDAY

AMC – 8:00 PM: Tonight why don’t we find out if Caddyshack still holds up?

TUESDAY

ABC – 9:00 PM: In the scariest example of corporate synergy ever, Elmo guests on tonight’s episode of Scrubs.

WEDNESDAY

DISNEY – 8:00 PM: Can you guess who needed the money more in doing Bob the Butler? Was it Tom Green in the title role or Brooke Shields?

CMT – 9:00 PM: I don’t know how I missed Beer for My Horses last year but how bad can a movie based on a country song be? Remember The Gambler? Oh wait…

THURSDAY

CMT – 9:00 PM: If you thought The Man Whose Arms Exploded was a story of overcoming tragedy or a a tale of spontaneous combustion you will be disappointed to find out it’s about a guy striving to be the man with the world’s biggest arms. 28 inch biceps and I bet he can’t even scratch his own nose.

FRIDAY

BRAVO – 9:00 PM: One of my guilty pleasures (and one of the few Adam Sandler movies I think is easy to stomach) is the movie Happy Gilmore. I know it isn’t a landmark piece of cinema, but I can watch it time and time again.

TBS – 9:00 PM: I’m still trying to figure out at what point Chris Rock actually thought the movie Head of State was a good idea. Better yet, at what point did he realize it wasn’t?

SATURDAY

AMC – 5:30 PM: Oh man… get dinner ready and make sure you are all settled in before the trifecta of Spaghetti Westerns with A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

SUNDAY

NBC – 3:00 PM: You may have heard something about some big football game today. SuperBowl XLIII has the Steelers against the Cardinals, and again I don’t even care.

ABC – Half-Time: The Alphabet rolls out a special SuperBowl halftime episode of Wipeout.

– Will Wilkins really hopes you bought that corporate shill thing as the reason why he slacked off this week.

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